Farewell, Hillary

Hillary Clinton, age 65, obeyed her doctors and removed her contact lenses to wear the prescription glasses she appeared with after she left the hospital, where she was treated for a blood clot in her brain. Some think these are special glasses to treat “double vision.” The blonde Secretary of State wore glasses through several stages of her youth — from her secondary studies in Illinois when she was a fervent right-wing, conservative Republican, to her arrival in Washington and her studies at Yale University, where she met classmate Bill Clinton and became a fervent liberal Democrat. But saying that the American State Department can see well does not mean that its calculations are based on clear perceptions. It is possible, on rare occasions, that wild speculations proffered in casual discussions happen to approach the truth. Hillary didn’t avoid giving answers in her most recent hearing before Congress last Wednesday. She said that the leaders who took power in North Africa during the Arab Spring “have no experience with democracy, they don’t have any real experience among the leaders in running countries and doing security.” [http://freebeacon.com/six-key-takeaways-from-hillary-clintons-benghazi-hearings/] In this, she points out that the Arab revolutions disturbed the established power dynamics and led to a security vacuum as well as to the rise of extremism. Her diagnosis does not unequivocally mean her position is opposed to the path the Arabs have taken in their nascent revolutions.

Mrs. Clinton’s speech was additional evidence of the U.S.’s lack of enthusiasm towards favoring — as she had previously promised — other Arab countries, but the important part in this is that she showed the persistence requires to rise up and conquer her illness. Regardless of whether she seemed to have lost weight or appeared uncertain when she replied to Sen. John McCain, she still confirmed her need for a good public image. When the senator accused the Obama administration of misleading Americans about the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Hillary acknowledged this event with courage and took responsibility for it.

We don’t recall any uncertainty in Madam Clinton during the storm around the discovery of the relationship between her husband — then-President of the United States Bill Clinton — and Miss Monica Lewinsky in the White House. Instead, the First Lady was said to be composed throughout and did not ask for a divorce, which would have served her interests. Ambitious and intelligent since adolescence, at the time of the scandal she had her eye on making Bill Clinton the First Husband. When she later lost the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama knew how to invest the potential of his opponent and she became the Secretary of State for the next four years, visiting over 110 countries and traveling more than a million miles.

This elegant American woman will be absent from our screens. It was rare for her appearance to cause frustration or tension — remember Albright and Condoleezza Rice? — given the fundamental fact that the U.S.’s commitment to Israel’s security is rock solid. This old lawyer will leave diplomatic leadership behind and perhaps she may recover from her double vision, but she might still surprise us in another prestigious position, be it American or international. It is rumored that Obama is considering nominating her to the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations. Others say she might try to run for president a second time. We leave her here after a long acquaintance, burdened with the failures of the U.S. perspective in other issues that concern us — the Arabs and the Third World — and the activities surrounding them. We do not associate Mrs. Clinton with any significant impact. Farewell none the less.